Better for you
by Lolathe17th
Summary: Brittany and Santana have been friends their whole lives, but Brittany wants more. Does Santana share her feelings? And what is Santana hiding about her home life? AU.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey guys! I know I shouldn't be starting a new story, but I've temporarily lost motivation to work on the other two, and this idea wouldn't leave me alone. I will eventually get back to the other ones. This fic will have chapters that alternate between high school and the future. The high school chapters will be angsty-ish, whereas the future chapters will be quite fluffy, I promise.

This is an AU fic (because I don't like a lot of what the Glee writers come up with), so in this case that means Sam does not live in a motel, nor does he move away to become a stripper. Quinn never got pregnant, so there is no Beth. Brittany and Santana have not slept together yet (story begins towards the end of their sophomore year).

I hope you'll enjoy this first chapter, please let me know what you think!

* * *

Brittany tried to hold back a growl, coming from somewhere deep down in her throat. She couldn't stand seeing that piece of scum's hands on Santana. Her Santana. Being in love with the most popular girl in the school was very frustrating.

She had been in love with Santana all her life. They had been nothing but best friends all their lives. Preschool had been okay, as far as Brittany could remember, but trouble had started in kindergarten.

"_I like your new sweatshirt, Britt!" Santana exclaimed. Brittany found herself blushing furiously, and unsuccessfully tried to gather enough nerve to tell Santana that she liked her dress. She looked like a princess in it, Brittany thought._

_Instead she started to tell Santana about the convincing she had had to do before her mom had let her have the pokemon sweatshirt, since it was technically a boys' shirt. Santana was giggling along, listening intently, when Noah Puckerman came up to them. _

"_Hey Santana," he said, somewhat shyly, "me and my mom made cookies, and I brought you some, do you want them?" Santana smiled the sweet smile that was usually reserved for Brittany. She clapped her hands in excitement before answering: "off course, thank you Noah!" She turned back to Brittany and said "see you later, Britty!" before following Noah to some other corner of the playground. _

_Brittany scuffed her pink tennis shoes over the ground in frustration. "Darn it," she thought, "why would Santana want to sit with a boy instead of with me?"_

Brittany had been dealing with variations of that kind of situation ever since. She had been able to deal with it by reassuring herself that she was still the most important person in Santana's life, that she would never trust any of those boys the way she trusted Brittany. But lately she wasn't so sure anymore.

Sam Evans was quickly becoming the bane of her existence. Santana had started dating him to hurt Quinn, but now, a couple of weeks later, it seemed that she was actually starting to like him! Brittany had never really believed this would ever happen, even though Puck had been warning her for years.

Nothing he had ever said, however, had prepared her for the moment she first witnessed Santana blushing and giggling when Sam brought her yet another stupid present (blushing! And giggling!).

At night Brittany used to lull herself asleep with images of Santana in a white dress, of Santana with her belly full and round, of Santana singing little dark-haired kids to sleep. Now she had nightmares about those same things, but Sam was in the background of every scene.

* * *

Sam kissed Santana on the cheek a final time, before turning away to make his way to class – Brittany really didn't understand why Santana was so infatuated with him, he didn't even bother walking her to class!

However, his departure meant that Santana finally remembered Brittany's existence. Unfortunately, all they had left time for was some gushing about Sam on Santana's part. Before they knew it, they were at Santana's classroom door, and they had to say goodbye.

Brittany continued on to her own class room, contemplating different ways in which she could kill Sam and get away with it.

The worst part was that since Santana had started seeing Sam, she seemed happier than she had in a long time. Brittany never really understood what happened behind the closed doors of the Lopez mansion, but she knew it wasn't all good. Even though they had been friends since forever, Brittany had rarely spent any time at Santana's house at all. They always hung out at Brittany's, not in the least because Brittany's mom much preferred it that way.

Santana was often gloomy or withdrawn without explanation. At other times, she was mean and bitchy seemingly without reason. Brittany knew that her behavior had deeper roots, but she had yet to figure out what those roots were. And now she had to confess that Sam seemed to make Santana happier than anybody else had managed to.

* * *

School was finally over, and Brittany made her way to her car by herself. She used to always take Santana to and from school – Santana's parents hadn't allowed her to get her license yet – but recently Sam had taken over that responsibility.

This new arrangement was, to Brittany, the worst part about Sam and Santana's relationship. Their car rides had often been the most fun part of Brittany's day, and on top of that, Santana would usually hang out at Brittany's house for a couple of hours before Brittany took her home. Now Brittany could only assume that Santana hung out with Sam after school.

She hated to admit it, but she was quite lonely these days. Sure, she was almost as close to Puck as she was to Santana, but ever since he had started dating Quinn – seriously this time – he hadn't had much time for her anymore either.

Without noticing it, she had reached her house, so she pulled into her driveway and got out. Her mom always said it was a miracle Brittany never got into any accidents considering how absent minded she was, but Brittany had a natural talent for anything concerning vehicles, so she pretty much drove around Lima subconsciously.

She got in and kissed her mom on the cheek. "Hey honey, how was school?" Her mom asked, interested as always. Brittany couldn't bring herself to do more than shrug her shoulders in response. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and said "I'm gonna go upstairs, okay, I've got tons of homework."

Brittany's mom didn't respond but watched her daughter's sagged shoulders, and hoped Santana would soon become a regular visitor again, as she couldn't bare seeing her oldest child so unhappy.


	2. Chapter 3

A/N: I had already written this, so I figured, why not uploading this? I don't like this chapter very much, but I promise that this is going somewhere, and next chapter there'll be more future fluff! :)

Please, please, let me know what you think, I don't care if it's negative feedback, it just hard to keep writing when you don't really know what people are thinking!

* * *

Brittany was lying on her bed. She was trying halfheartedly to do her math homework, but she really couldn't care less about school on a good today, so it was more of an admittedly lame attempt to distract herself from her Santana-thoughts.

Needless to say, she was getting nowhere. Just as she was contemplating the inutility of math skills, her phone rang. She was surprised to see a number flash across the screen that she didn't recognize. Usually she would only expect calls from Puck or Mike. Or Santana. Until recently.

She answered with a curious hello. "Brittany?" Brittany would recognize that voice anywhere. It was Santana. And she couldn't just identify her voice, she could also tell that the girl was distressed.

She sat up a little straighter on her bed. "What's the matter, San? Are you okay? Why aren't you using your own phone? Where are you?" Brittany knew that the best way to get Santana to talk was to not bombard her with a ton of questions, but she just couldn't contain herself, she was already sick with worry. Santana never didn't have her phone, it used to annoy Brittany to no end how attached the girl was to it, so she figured something had to be wrong for her to be calling her with somebody else's phone. To even be calling her to begin with. They hadn't talked outside of school for weeks.

Sobbing was all she got as an answer, and she was getting frustrated now, because she was so worried. "Santana, what the hell is going on?" She half-yelled, sounding a lot angrier than she had meant to. She heard a sharp intake of breath before the call was ended. Damn it, she had scared Santana off.

She had no clue what she was supposed to do now. She knew Santana was in some kind of trouble, so she definitely couldn't just pretend that the phone call hadn't happened. However, she had also no clue as to how to figure out where Santana was.

* * *

After lashing out against the boxing ball she had in her room for about ten minutes, she finally thought of the obvious and called the number Santana had used back. She silently prayed for her to pick up.

"Hello?" a female voice asked. It wasn't Santana's voice however. Now what? "Hi," she started off hesitantly, "uhm, a couple of minutes ago a girl called me using your phone, do you know where she is, or how she is doing?" There, that was quite good, she thought. Short and to the point, unlike the downpour of questions she had aimed at Santana earlier.

"I don't know where she went", the gentle voice answered, "but she was really upset. She asked me if she could use my phone because she forgot hers at home, but I don't know, I got the feeling she wasn't telling me everything. She seemed scared."

"Then what happened?" Brittany asked. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip absent-mindedly. She had been chewing on it out of nervousness, and it had started bleeding.

"She made a short call, I don't know what she said, because she walked out of earshot, and then she gave the phone back to me. I think she had started crying, because she seemed embarrassed. Then she just ran away."

"And where were you?" Brittany inquired. "I was outside of Breadsticks, just walking to my car."

"Okay, thank you so much," Brittany said, ready to disconnect the call. "Wait," the lady said, "I'm sorry I didn't do anything else, I mean it was pretty obvious something was going on, but after she made the call, she just disappeared, and I thought about going after her, but I thought it was none of my business, but I shouldn't have let her go, 'cause she was really young and" Brittany interrupted her rambling. "It's okay," she said softly, "I'm glad you gave her your phone."

* * *

They hung up, and Brittany made her way downstairs. Now to convince her mom that something was wrong … "Hey mom," she began, "Santana just called me. She was really upset." Her mom looked at her carefully, wondering where this was going. Brittany hadn't mentioned Santana for several weeks now, and it was clearly a sensitive subject. She waited for Brittany to continue.

"Mom, she's out there somewhere and I don't know where. She doesn't have her phone, she used somebody else's and you know Santana always has her phone!"

Brittany's mom sighed, knowing it was true. "So know what?" she asked, "I'm guessing you want to go look for her?" "Yes mom, please let me go, I just know that something is really wrong!"

"All right, but I want you to go pick up Mike or Puck first, so you're not by yourself." Brittany agreed, quickly deciding to drive past Mike's house, because she knew Santana didn't like Puck, and she didn't want San to have to deal with him if Brittany found her.

She grabbed her car keys and put on a jacket, cold air biting her unwelcomingly. She called Mike before she got in her car to let him know she was on her way. Brittany could tell he was very confused, but she loved him for not questioning her and assuring her he would be ready to go when she got there.

By the time she got to Mike's house her mind was going in overdrive, worrying about where she had to go look for Santana. Once she had managed to more or less explain to Mike what was really going on, he took over driving, so she could focus on coming up with possible spots Santana could be hiding out in.

Brittany's first thought was that she would have gone to Sam's house, but then again, why wouldn't she just have done that straight away, instead of going to Breadsticks first, and using a stranger's phone to call _Brittany_, not Sam.

* * *

They drove past Breadsticks, not seeing anybody. Next up was Quinn's house; even though Brittany highly doubted Santana would go to Quinn – they hadn't really gotten along for like a year now – and even though Brittany herself didn't really want to involve Quinn in this whole ordeal, she still wanted to exclude the possibility. Quinn wasn't home, which was sort of a relief to Brittany, and Santana was nowhere to be seen either.

After driving by the strip mall where the Lima Bean was, Brittany was getting desperate. She was assuming Santana was on foot, she couldn't have gotten very far, could she? Finally it hit her, the park! Her and Santana had spent so much time there, Brittany was sure it held nothing but good memories for her friend. She told Mike to turn the car, and crossed her fingers. _Please let her be there, and be okay_, she thought.


End file.
